By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
The diocese’s growing Catholic men’s movement hopes to get a boost with an event featuring two prominent lay leaders whose focus is the renewal of marriage and family life.
The Catholic Men’s Conference Hawaii is being organized by local heads of the “That Man Is You!” (TMIY) program, and will feature as its main speakers the Houston-based founders of that program.
Steve Bollman
The conference is 8:15 a.m.-4 p.m., March 14, on the Catholic Charities Hawaii campus in upper Makiki. Its theme is “The Greatest Confrontation.”
The speakers are Steve Bollman, founder and president of Paradisus Dei, a Catholic organization that supports marriage and family life, and Mark Hartfiel, its vice president. Both men were instrumental in the creation of TMIY, a program of Paradisus Dei that addresses men’s spirituality.
The conference begins with Mass at 8:15 a.m. The day includes breakfast and lunch. The cost is $30 per person and can be paid in advance on Eventbrite or at the door. The minimum age to attend is 18.
Paradisus Dei, Latin for the “Paradise of God,” is an independent, lay Catholic ministry that, according to its website, “helps families discover the superabundance of God within marriage and family life.”
Mark Hartfiel
Its programs serve couples, men and youth in 46 states by “integrating the teachings of the faith with findings of modern science and the wisdom of the saints.”
That Man Is You! is an interactive program for Catholic men focused on the “development of male leadership in the modern world.” In Hawaii, it is active at St. Elizabeth Church in Aiea and Resurrection of the Lord Church in Waipio.
TMIY is presented in two, 13-week sessions, the first examining the scriptural vision of man in relationship to his family and society, the second showing the practical means of becoming that man. It addresses the pressures and temptations men face in modern culture.
Gary Okino, the facilitator of TMIY at St. Elizabeth Church is one of the primary organizers of the men’s conference. In asking Bollman and Hartfiel to speak, he told them he wanted an event that would “help our men realize their real God-given identity, or DNA, and to fully live that identity.”
“We need to get our men back into the battle, a battle that cannot be won without the participation of all members of the nuclear family,” he said. “The devil knows who to attack to destroy the family. That’s why the evil one is focused on taking the men out of the family. This conference needs to open the eyes of the men who are there.”
Hartfiel, in an email last week to the Hawaii Catholic Herald, said Okino was “absolutely right!”
“We titled the conference ‘The Greatest Confrontation,’” he said, quoting St. John Paul II who said, ‘We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has gone through.’”
Dewey Arakawa, facilitator of TMIY at Resurrection Parish Church, said, “we are in a spiritual battle for our souls. We are fighting for our families, and we need to educate men. We need to make them aware of the threats to our faith, to our masculinity, and to the family.”
“A conference will bring men together, to connect us in our faith, to find strength in one another,” he said. “We cannot do this alone.”
Suggesting this battle, the conference’s promotional poster shows a man bowed in prayer as a winged creature with a sword hovers behind him surrounded by many shadowy horned figures.
Said Hartfiel, “We are now facing the final confrontation between the church and the anti-church, of the Gospel versus the anti-Gospel. I do not think that wide circles of the American society or wide circles of the Christian community realize this fully.”
“If the family is Satan’s primary target, there is no question that the men of our day have a bulls-eye on their backs,” he said. “If the future of the world and the church do indeed pass by way of the family, then we simply have to set the hearts of men on fire. We have to have a dedicated effort to minister to men as men.”
Regarding This Man Is You!, the program he helped develop, he said it is “all about a personal encounter with Jesus Christ so that Jesus Christ can transform lives.”
“The program encounters men wherever they are in their spiritual lives and seeks to take them further,” Hartfiel said. “Individual lives are transformed. Families are renewed and restored. Parishes experience the impact of this new passion for the Lord.”
“So many men are lost, trapped, confused, depressed, and totally entrenched in the ways of modern culture. Literally, the number one cause of disability today is depression. That’s crazy! As men of God we can do better,” he said.
Okino likes the way TMIY “presents our true Catholic faith in a practical and understandable way. Those who persevere through the sessions are often astounded at what they don’t know about our Catholic faith. It opens their eyes.”
TMIY has registered more than 100 men at his parish over the past five years, Okino said. But many sign up and don’t come, or don’t stay for the duration of the program.
“There are a few that have been set on fire and have been with us from the beginning,” Okino said. The present weekly sessions attract 10-12 participants.
Resurrection Parish, which has had TMIY since 2013, has registered 130 men, some from other parishes, Arakawa said. Of them, 20-25 participate weekly.
Hartfiel said an advantage of the program is the small groups.
“A band of brothers is formed,” he said. “In a physical battle, no solider could survive alone. There is no such thing as a lone soldier. The same is true in spiritual battle. But the stakes are even higher! The consequences are eternal!”
According to Hartfiel, TMIY brings together 25,000 men each week in 725 parishes, in 147 dioceses, in eight countries.
But the two local programs could use a lift, Okino said.
“Men in Hawaii today are apathetic about their faith,” he said. “They believe it doesn’t matter or make a difference (or) they feel that it will take too much effort.”
Some mainland conferences attract more than 1,000 men, he said. “Our previous conferences have attracted less than 100 men. We need to get the men back into the battle for souls.”
Arakawa sees the challenge as men being too busy. “Men desire to be better but it’s not a priority right now, or they just can’t make the time,” he said. “How do we change their priorities?”
